For Organisations Supporting Women
Women’s Organisations · Employers · Financial Services · Police
You are in the right place.
Harbour Lights Community helps you strengthen the support you provide to women experiencing domestic and post-separation abuse, with information and tools tailored to each woman’s individual circumstances.
At each stage of abuse, a woman faces different questions. Without the information to answer them, she is unlikely to progress. And the sooner she has the information, the sooner she is able to move forward.
Help your teams support more women with the time and staff you already have.
01 — The Research Behind Our Approach
Research in the US showed that women were more likely to have left their abuser after 12 months if they received tailored information and support. They also experienced less uncertainty about safety decisions and reported a greater increase in helpful protective behaviours.738
This research is why we have designed our resources so they can be tailored to each woman’s circumstances and the decisions she faces. To understand what information women needed, we interviewed 26 women who had experienced post-separation abuse.
Their experiences helped us identify the information and the structure of the resources. We then used published research and specialist guidance to provide the information and answers the women identified.
Our aim is to help your organisation support women to move towards safety and independence sooner, reducing the suffering they experience through abuse and improving their long-term outcomes.
02 — The Benefits
Your team may meet a woman at any point in her journey through abuse, from early in the relationship, during it, or after separation. What she needs changes at each stage. Meeting those needs well takes time, specialist knowledge spread across many sources, information matched to her specific situation, and trust that keeps her coming back.
Harbour Lights brings that knowledge together. Our resources combine published research, specialist guidance and practical information, shaped by the insights of women who have experienced post-separation abuse. Your team draws on them alongside its own expertise, and gains four things:
Four ways HLC strengthens the support your team builds around her.
Give your team time to tailor support for every woman. Tailoring information to one woman means researching several forms of abuse and pulling the relevant parts together by hand. Few teams have time to do that for everyone. Constellation identifies possible patterns of abuse in one process, and Lumina creates a bespoke guide for her circumstances in minutes. Tailored support becomes routine rather than exceptional, and your team gains time to reach more women.
Draw on research-backed sources, so every woman receives the same depth of information. Domestic and post-separation abuse span a wide range of behaviours, legislation and research, much of it spread across many different sources. HLC brings this knowledge together in one place, including practical ways to respond to post-separation abuse. Each practitioner draws on the same evidence while applying their own expertise.
Give her only the information that is relevant to her situation. With general resources, a woman often has to sort through the information herself, just when she has least capacity to do so. Our resources are shaped by the insights of women who experienced post-separation abuse, so they cover what women need to know, when they need it, in a way they can take in. Less of her time and your team’s is spent on information that doesn’t apply to her.
Become a safe, trusted place she can return to for support throughout her journey. Trust grows each time she receives information that reflects her experiences and shows a way forward. HLC equips your team to provide that information at every stage, within the relationship and after separation. Each encounter builds on the last, encouraging further disclosure until the abuse has finally stopped.
03 — Our Products
Six products. One connected circle of support.
Together, our resources support her through every stage of her journey: early in an abusive relationship, through separation and post-separation abuse, until she comes full circle to a life without abuse.
As she progresses through these stages, she faces different challenges and needs different support. Our products help your team provide relevant information and practical help at each stage, building trust and encouraging her to return when she needs support.
Help her recognise possible patterns of abuse in one step.
Constellation is an interactive web-based application that helps women identify possible patterns of abuse from the behaviours they recognise in their own experiences.
It can identify several overlapping patterns in one process, helping women make sense of behaviours that may otherwise appear unrelated.
Discover Constellation
Create personalised guidance for each woman in minutes.
Lumina is a practitioner-facing digital application that brings together detailed information relevant to the specific behaviours a woman is experiencing, whether she is in a relationship or has separated.
It produces personalised information guides, shaped by the practitioner’s expertise and understanding of her circumstances. Practical preventative and responsive countermeasures currently focus on post-separation abuse.
Discover Lumina
Help her understand the abuse that comes after separation and explore ways to respond.
A series of comprehensive, downloadable digital guides covering specific forms of post-separation abuse, their consequences and practical preventative and responsive countermeasures.
Each guide is organised around the behaviours women experience, making detailed, research-informed information easier to find and use.
Explore the Guides
Share a directory designed around each area of her life that may need support, helping her build the foundations for independence.
An online directory of organisations and specialist services for women experiencing abuse, both during relationships and after separation. Each category maps to an area of her life where she may need support to live independently, such as finances, housing, food, legal aid, safety and emotional support.
Services are organised by region across England and by postcode across London, so she can find local help without spending hours searching for it.
Explore the Support Directory
Help her prepare for specific challenges and decisions.
A collection of downloadable checklists and practical resources designed around particular tasks, circumstances and decisions women face during abuse.
Each resource provides focused information that women can refer to when they need it, without having to work through a full Guide.
Explore Practical Resources
Find domestic abuse research easily with access to a curated database of over 300 vetted sources.
An online, searchable database of the research, UK legislation, professional guidance and specialist sources underpinning HLC’s information.
It allows practitioners to explore the evidence behind our resources and locate sources relevant to their work.
Explore the Reference Library04 — Who We Support
Women’s organisations, employers, financial services and police are all trying to support women facing abuse. Each approaches that goal from a different position, with its own challenges. To help you address them, we have developed resources designed to work alongside the expertise, services and processes you already have.
Explore how Harbour Lights can support your organisation.
Women’s Organisations
Supporting one woman can mean bringing together information on several forms of abuse from multiple sources, much of it too generic for her circumstances.
HLC makes comprehensive, individualised information faster and easier to provide, with Lumina, practitioners can create a tailored guide in minutes, giving women more relevant information and more time for direct support.
Explore Women’s Organisations
Employers
Employers can provide understanding, flexibility and workplace support, but HR teams and managers cannot be expected to have specialist knowledge of every form of abuse or its consequences.
HLC gives employees access to specialist information they can explore privately, helping them understand their circumstances, options and sources of support, while you continue to help within your existing responsibilities.
Explore Employer Support
Financial Services
Financial services organisations have made significant progress in supporting customers experiencing economic abuse. Yet many women do not recognise what they are experiencing as abuse, may not disclose it, or may not realise that their bank can help.
HLC helps women identify possible economic abuse, understand its financial consequences and explore practical ways to respond, creating new ways to help customers reach and make use of the support you already have available.
Explore Financial Services
Police
Women may come into contact with the police before they recognise the full extent of what they are experiencing or feel ready to talk about it. Without trust, officers may only hear about an individual incident, while other abusive behaviours remain undisclosed.
HLC provides information that officers and victim-support teams can share, helping women recognise abusive behaviours, understand their experiences and explore their options. Each encounter can be an opportunity to build trust and encourage further disclosure when they feel ready.
Explore Support for Police05 — How We Source Our Information
Grounded in research. Traceable to every source.
Our resources bring together peer-reviewed research, published studies, UK legislation, government guidance and the expertise of specialist women’s organisations.
Every factual claim is referenced, with sources available through our Reference Library. Our assurance framework includes legal scrutiny, ongoing review and clear guidance on how the information should be used.
This gives your practitioners a reliable foundation of knowledge to draw upon, alongside their own expertise and professional judgement.
Explore Our Evidence & Assurance FrameworkLet’s Work Together
The expertise and relationships your team has built are at the heart of the support women receive. HLC supports that work with research-informed information that can be tailored to each woman’s circumstances.
Whether you’re a specialist service, police force, financial services provider or employer, we’d welcome a conversation about how our products could fit within the support you already offer.
Book a conversation
More information.
Bespoke support.
Better possibilities.
